by S T Branton
I sucked in my breath and as I exhaled, my trigger finger squeezed. The pistol jumped, and the smallest sliver of my pumpkin rocketed off into space.
“That counts,” I said to Deacon. “I hit it. You saw that.” I lowered the gun so I could point to the millimeter of exposed orange pumpkin meat.
“I don’t know,” he said doubtfully. “I think that’s what we in the business like to call a technicality.”
“Ugh.” I scowled at the weapon. “You guys in the business can shove it up your asses.” I raised the weapon once more and I took another shot. This second attempt went shamefully wide, even to my eyes. The bullet zinged off into the open sky.
“And that,” said Deacon as he shifted my arm once more, “is why we practice in an open field in the middle of nowhere.” He put his hands on my shoulders and squeezed gently. “Give it one more try.”
I groaned but did as he suggested. The third bullet zipped over the pumpkin’s stem and left its broad face completely undisturbed. Behind me, Deacon tried not to laugh. He succeeded—mostly.
I popped the magazine out and tossed it into the grass. Somehow, I resisted the urge to chuck the gun after it and placed it carefully on the ground beside me instead. “Fuck this shit!” The pistol had no sooner left my grip than I had my trusty sword in hand. I uttered a warrior’s shout as I threw it in a forward arc. The blade stuck neatly, dead center in the target’s body.
Deacon nodded and arched his eyebrows. “There we go. That’s not bad at all.”
“Can your stupid bullets do this?” I asked. On cue, the Gladius Solis sailed back to me, trailing its impaled cargo behind. I caught it and shook the pumpkin carcass off with a flourish. The juice sizzled off the surface of the blade. It smelled vaguely roasted and rotten.
“Show off,” he said affectionately. “You get points for style and points for precision, but that’s it.”
I sauntered in closer. “What about points for being a badass, sexy Wonder Woman?” The sword went back to my belt.
Deacon grabbed my waist. “None of that makes you a better shot,” he said.
I put my hand over my heart and pretended he’d wounded me. “Ouch. And they say romance is dead.”
“Truth hurts, beautiful. I don’t make the rules.” He chuckled and leaned down to touch his forehead to mine. I wrapped my arms around his neck and lifted onto my toes. Our lips were inches apart when the coarse squawk of the radio on my chest killed the mood.
“Hey, guys.” Luis’s voice crackled over the channel. “You gotta get back in here—like, right now.”
I pulled away from Deacon and thumbed the button. “Now?” I repeated. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” the kid replied. “Your friends from DC are here. They want to spill the beans.”
Deacon and I looked at each other and set off for the main building. I took Marcus’s medallion from my pocket and slipped the chain over my head. “Roger that,” I told Luis. “We’re on our way.”
Chapter Two
Deacon and I were the last to arrive at the fort’s only real conference area. Everyone else had already grouped around the long, glossy table. I shut the door as we entered and made a mental tally of faces. Steph and Frank stood amid the usual suspects and I couldn’t help but notice how closely they’d positioned themselves.
Then I had to do a double-take at Frank because damn, the man looked great. He was still not my type, but he was now a far cry from the corpulent, downtrodden gangster I had once loved to hate. He’d trimmed down a ton, and without the dead weight and the dark circles, there was a certain silver-screen charm about his rough features.
“Steph.” Deacon moved forward and enveloped his ex-partner in a hug. “It’s as good as hell to see you.”
She gave him a half smile. “And you, St. Clare. I hope you weren’t worried. You of all people know how hard it is to get rid of me.” They shared a chuckle. Over Steph’s shoulder, Frank caught my eye and I had to pretend I hadn’t stared at him.
He grinned. “Did ya miss me, Vic? By the look on your face, I’d almost think you were happy to see me.”
“Don’t read too much into it, Frank,” I said. “I’m only glad you’re back in off the streets.”
Shortly thereafter, I called the meeting to order. “Let’s get this ball rolling. We have a lot of information to exchange.”
“How were things out west?” Steph asked. “We received snippets from Maya, but not too much. DC is a disaster. It’s difficult to get communications in or out.”
I drummed my fingers on the tabletop and glanced at the circle of faces. “Well, we flew out, we killed some gods, and we found Delano.”
“No shit?” Frank asked. He frowned almost regretfully. “We caught wind of his name a few times too. I haven’t seen that son of a bitch since…” He made a general motion at his vampy appearance. “You know.”
“It turns out he’s been pretty freaking busy,” I said. “The dude’s on a rampage, killing gods and absorbing their powers. He’s becoming some kind of bizarre amalgamation of every god he’s managed to defeat.” I recalled the image of Delano’s long black hair turning gold as Oxylem’s lifeless body drifted away on the tide.
“I didn’t know that was possible,” Maya said. “Does it hurt him at all?”
I shook my head. “I wish, but it’s the other way around. He gets stronger every time he does it.”
Steph piped up again. “But you still kicked his ass, right?”
“We didn’t fight,” I said. “I don’t think he wanted to, for whatever reason. He arrived, then screwed off, and we came back here.”
“Damn,” she said. “He sounds like a guy who could use a good thrashing.”
“Speaking of screwin’ off, where the hell is Brax?” Frank asked and swiveled his head to look around the room.
“Yeah.” I snuck a look at Jules, who refused to return it. “He’s in the wind as usual. He split right after we touched down on the east coast. Said he had something he needed to do, but I sure as hell don’t know what that is.”
Perhaps it is for the best that the demon remains absent, Marcus suggested. He may be somewhat reformed, but I maintain that his most prevalent talent is to attract trouble of all kinds.
I laughed. “Somewhat reformed? That’s all you can give him?”
It is all he has earned.
“You might be right,” I said. “Who needs a bullheaded, ornery old guy around when we’ve already got you? I’m beginning to think that the real reason you don’t like Brax is because you’re too much alike.”
This is slanderous language, the centurion warned grumpily.
“Oh, please,” I said. “Brax earns his keep. We all know it. Sometimes, I really can’t believe how stubborn you are.”
Deacon nodded. “I’ll admit that he can be pretty weird, but if there’s anything I’ve learned about Brax by now, it’s that he’ll turn up when he’s good and ready. Say whatever you want about him, he always does.”
A murmur of general agreement ran through the room. Jules had graduated to making eye contact with me, but her face remained impassive. She had yet to open up about what was going on between her and the demon, but I was her best friend and I had my theories.
I turned back to Steph and Frank. “Tell me about the capital,” I said. “On a scale of ‘not at all’ to ‘totally,’ how fucked is it?”
She considered my rating system. “It’s seriously fucked,” she said finally. “But not hopeless. The city’s overrun, for sure, with a bunch of gods and other stuff. None of them have a solid presence like they did in New York, though.” She looked at Frank. “What do you think?”
The former mobster pulled a face. “It ain’t a pretty sight,” he admitted. “I can’t say one way or the other if there’s much left worth fighting over. It looked like it wasn’t anything more than a free for all from where we stood.” He paused. “Except that one place.”
Steph nodded. “True. There’s one area betwe
en the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial that appeared to have been secured against the Forgotten. We didn’t get close enough to infiltrate, but we could see human troops patrolling a fairly wide perimeter, particularly around Lincoln. They were trying to clear out more so they could expand.”
“And weren’t doing a half-bad job, neither,” Frank added. “By the time we left, they gained some ground.”
She folded her arms. “Of course, we almost didn’t get to leave at all, what with this clumsy lunk picking fights over territory.” Although she glared daggers at Frank, her mouth held the hint of a smile.
“Hey!” he retorted, instantly on the defensive. “Did you want a closer look or not, woman? I can tell you from experience, these guys are beasts. The only rules they know are pack rules, and that means you fight for dominance.”
“You nearly had your ass kicked for dominance,” she said. “Just saying.”
Frank puffed up indignantly. “I had to make it believable,” he said. “I coulda beat the living daylights out of all of them, but do you think we would’ve gone undercover after that? No, sir.”
She glanced meaningfully at me. “He almost had his rear end handed to him on a silver platter. Don’t ask me how he pulled it off in the end.” She rolled her eyes. “Oh, wait, I saved his knuckleheaded ass.” She flashed Frank a real smile as she said that.
He grinned back. “Only a little. I had it covered for the most part.”
Steph patted his back. “Whatever helps you sleep at night, champ.”
I observed the exchange in stunned silence, barely comprehending what I saw. What the hell was going on there? How much weird subtext had I missed? I shook my head slightly. At least Deacon and I somewhat made sense together.
Frank cleared his throat. “Don’t listen to the lady, Vic. I got in far enough to see something interesting, which is that someone’s set up shop in the memorial. They cut Lincoln’s head off and everything. Ballsy move, if you ask me.”
“You’ll never guess who it was,” Steph interjected. She looked at Deacon. “Our old friend.”
Deacon blinked. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope. We found him there, doing what he does best.” She mimed the act of smoking a cigarette, and I realized she was talking about the man from Central Park who’d shown up at the tunnel out of New York City.
“He cut Lincoln’s head off?” I asked, dumbfounded.
She shrugged. “It might not have been him who did that. But I wouldn’t be too surprised if it was, honestly.” She stopped fake smoking. “He said he wants to see you, by the way. As soon as possible. He said it was urgent.”
I ran my hand through my hair. “Of course.” A feeling I couldn’t quite explain wormed its way down into my stomach—like doubt mixed with resignation. Ordinarily, my gut might have advised me not to trust a person who possibly committed acts of vandalism on a national monument. But at the same time, it was impossible to pretend that the mysterious man hadn’t come through for me on multiple occasions.
Besides that, as usual, what choice did we have? One way or another, Delano had to be stopped. I already knew we’d need all the allies we could get.
“Well,” I said. “I know what we’re doing tomorrow. Next stop, DC.”
Chapter Three
I had slowly adjusted to being up at the crack of dawn and now trudged toward the trucks in the early, pale grey light. This time, I had everyone but Dan, Veronica, Jules, and Luis. The kid had begged me, practically on his knees, to ship out with the rest of us, but I’d played the bad cop and told him he had to stay. “Dan needs a righthand man,” was what I told him. Luis was plainly less than convinced, but his admirable sense of duty finally won out and he returned to the fort without a continued fight.
After that, the goodbyes were brief. We loaded into the trucks and drove out to the road in less than ten minutes. The way to the interstate was cold and dusty and the big wheels kicked up dirt and frost as we tracked our way to the highway. “You just got back and I’ve made you retrace your steps,” I said apologetically to Frank. “Sorry about that.”
He sat in the passenger seat with his elbow on the window sill and stared directly ahead out the windshield. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “It’s all in a day’s work. And it beats sitting around on my ass doing nothing.”
On that much, we agreed. “Tell me about it,” I said. I glanced constantly in the rearview mirror, even though the road was eerily empty, and marveled at the changes that had taken place in Frank. “You know, you look awesome,” I told him. “You’re, like, glowing.”
“I ain’t knocked up if that’s what you’re getting at,” he said gruffly.
We both laughed. “Getting out on the road has been good for you,” I told him. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this happy.”
The vampire mumbled something unintelligible and turned his face away. I thought I caught a glimpse of a blush creeping into his cheeks. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he managed awkwardly and stared fixedly out the window. A few moments of silence passed. “I guess I never thought the apocalypse would be the thing to change my life for the better.”
“Oh?” I kept my voice carefully neutral. “I thought this had something to do with a certain blonde FBI bombshell.”
The blush intensified to the point where it became impossible to hide. Frank hemmed and hawed for a while, clearly uncomfortable with the line of questioning, but I could also tell he wanted to talk about it, at least a little. “It’s nothing,” he said after a protracted pause. “We just…” He trailed off and shrugged his broad shoulders.
“Just what?” I prodded like an annoying sibling or a nosy friend. “Just really like each other? Just want to get married and have a picket fence, two and a half kids, and a family dog?”
The ex-mobster gave me a warning look. “I don’t know about any of that half a kid bullshit, but…” He exhaled a big breath. “I don’t know, all right? We mighta hooked up once or twice. Or a few times.”
I smiled triumphantly. “There it is.”
“What can I say?” He threw his hands up. “It’s been a helluva long time since I had anyone to care about. Longer than that since anyone cared about me. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel real nice.”
I do not support this union, Marcus complained. Such fraternizing between a human and a Forgotten is no less than an abomination. It is surely an ill omen.
I shushed him hard with my mind, unwilling to dampen Frank’s newfound serenity in any way. He might have been a lowlife thug when we first met, but the guy was on the up and up, and I liked him. The least he deserved was a chance.
“Did she make you sleep on the couch after she had to rescue you from that fight?” I asked, mostly joking.
He chuckled. “She threatened, but nah. She’s not that scary when you get down to it. I mean, not it.” The blush returned with a vengeance. He struggled to find more appropriate phrasing. “She’s a good cop. Found out a lot of stuff. She wanted to go farther in instead of me when we reached the Memorial, but I told her a human approaching would be too suspicious. They coulda shot her on sight.” He scratched his chin. “I pretended to be a regular vamp and bellied up to the perimeter. I let ʼem fight me off, but not before I had a good look at the place.”
I opened my mouth to ask for more details. Instead, a curse emerged. “Shit!” I grabbed the wheel with both hands and stomped the brake. The truck went into a sideways skid and sprayed dust and gravel up against the body. As the cloud cleared, Frank and I stared at a watery chasm framed by two ragged segments of what had once been a bridge.
“What the fuck?” Frank muttered.
“It looks like it’s out,” I said.
The vamp shook his head. “This can’t be right. It wasn’t out yesterday.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”
“It couldn’t have been out,” he insisted. “We crossed it on our way to the fort.”
A car doo
r slammed behind us. Moments later, Deacon walked past my window. He inspected the stub of the bridge in front of the truck before he returned and tapped on the glass. I rolled it down.
“I’m not an expert, but I think this was done on purpose,” he said. We looked at each other and obviously shared the same thought.
I threw open my door and hollered, “Ambush!”
The other vehicles pulled in tight and we gathered in the center, circled, and faced outward. The thick trees on either side of the road quivered with hellish, unearthly growls.
“You could’ve told us you had planned a family reunion, Maya,” Steph joked.
“Call it a surprise party,” she shot back. “I have to admit, they almost got me.” She hulked out as a wave of mangy fur and glistening fangs exploded through the tree line. The howls were enough to rattle my teeth. I clenched my jaw and drew my sword.
Deacon and Steph opened fire first. On my right, Frank charged the nearest werewolf and instantly tore out a huge chunk of the creature’s throat. The wolf staggered, reverted to human form, and clutched at the wound. Before it even hit the ground, the vampire leapt onto his next victim. He was astonishingly fast now, much like the vamps I’d fought in the slaughterhouse, and he still impacted like a semi.
I dodged the Were with the missing trachea and struck out at the legs of the one right behind it to bring the beast to its knees. On instinct, I planted the Gladius Solis into the hard, half-frozen ground and used my momentum to swing around. The blade came free as I sailed forward and lopped the wolf’s head cleanly off its neck on my way past. The feverish yellow eyes glazed over, and the body slumped heavily. I hit the ground running and thrust the sword into a Were’s chest. The bones stood out in sharp, emaciated relief beneath its shoddy hide.
